See, here's the thing - I may not be totally tech-illiterate, but I DO know which end of a USB stick plugs in. Either that or I need to find a laptop with a bigger USB slot. I didn't appreciate the Vodafone salesman telling me that, though, when I went into the store to replace my mobile broadband dongle, which stopped working just after I loaded another years' worth of internet on it. I don't use it often, it's more a backup and for use when I travel, but every Boxing Day I load it up again for the coming year. Having shelled out $125 for the coming year I was in no mood to be asked "are you going to keep using the internet?" and then be told which end of the new dongle plugs in... seriously dude do I look that mentally incompetent?

Well maybe I am, at that. The poem I posted yesterday? I've now taken down, having suddenly realised that the little C in a circle means that despite the age of the poem's form, the poem itself is still under copyright.

No wonder my phone is over two years old, though, and well out of contract. Apart from the fact that I still LIKE my phone, the whole process of buying a new one is daunting. It really shouldn't be that hard.

Don't know what's going on with my legs. Walking around yesterday and thought my thighs felt a bit jelly-ish, like I'd been exercising, but I hadn't exercised since Tuesday and I was fine on Wednesday, walking to and from the bus stop plus a trek uptown at lunchtime that would have been just over 2km round trip. Then today when I woke up my thigh muscles were screaming! No idea what that's all about. Maybe I've been sleepwalking, up and down my back steps. Really can't explain it otherwise.

Knocked off early today, as in 1.30pm. Only two salespeople were working today, and the loans just weren't coming through for approval. After spending a couple of hours browsing realestate.com.au I was finally told to pack up and go. Yay for early marks!

Oh, saleschildren (my new term, coined just now) in electronic and techie stores are just annoying. I sympathise totally. I remember upgrading my phone after years and years with an early Nokia. And it came with different buttons. And I thought, 'how do I put a call through?' (I typed in the number and then thought, 'now what?')

I read the entire manual. I learned how to import ring tones. I learned how to turn it into an FM radio. I learned how to set up groups for texts. I learned how to create different noises for different callers. What it didn't say, anywhere in the manual, was 'how to make a phone call'. It automatically assumed that everyone knew that the little unintelligible green symbol was 'ring', and the little red unintelligible symbol was 'hang up'. (There are accessibility issues here, but anyway.)

I went into the shop and told the saleschild. He treated me like an idiot. Like you, I thought, 'I helped create the world that you are in. I used to be able to set the auto-repeat on a BBC microcomputer in machine code. I fixed a bug in the code of a Linux hacker. How the hell am I being patronised by this man?'

I am cacking myself laughing at this! I was so thrilled when I got my current phone - my first smartphone - and I immediately began personalising it with my preferred ringtones etc. But the first time it rang I had no freaking idea how to answer the call! I was on a bus, too, which really ramped up the embarrassment factor. I kept stabbing at the green phone icon that appeared on the screen; I had no idea that one is supposed to "swipe" across the screen from the icon.